The present invention is related to the field of computerized case management systems.
Some applications of case management systems may require human users to handle cases identified only by obscure identifiers, such as serial numbers or fingerprints, which the human users cannot easily distinguish, remember, recognize, or track. In some situations, for example when dealing with cases representing individual persons, more-memorable identifiers such as personal names may be withheld due to privacy concerns. In other situations, such as in scientific studies of cases involving non-human individuals (e.g., animals), no memorable identifiers may preexist. Moreover, in some situations, an individual case may be identified by any of a plurality of identifiers, each available in non-overlapping or only partially overlapping circumstances, thus multiplying the memorability difficulty for obscure identifiers. Examples include a set of 10 fingerprints of a subject; a set of IP addresses of a mobile web user moving from cell to cell; a patient's medical-chart numbers from different providers; or a chain of session identifiers assigned to a website visitor. Even if the individual identifiers are memorable, the linking of disparate identifiers itself introduces a memorability problem.